Wherever Mike Leach went, offensive football changed.
Leach made a career out of revolutionizing college offenses. As he’d jump states, however, his ideas spread beyond college ball.
The impact of Leach’s and Hal Mumme’s “Air Raid” system has penetrated all levels of the sport. Passing offense has grown to dominate college and professional football. It’s taken off in high school programs, as well.
Leach, head football coach at Mississippi State, died Monday at 61 following complications from a heart condition.
His legacy will live on through the Air Raid for generations. It’s even influenced local high school football for the last decade-plus.
BROCKWAY THREW the ball a lot in the late 2000s.
Frank Varischetti’s offenses carved through opponents using the Air Raid, channeling Tony Franklin’s Kentucky offenses that topped the Southeastern Conference earlier in the decade. Franklin had been the running backs coach on Mumme’s Kentucky staff before succeeding Leach as offensive coordinator when the latter was hired by Oklahoma.
Brockway rode the Air Raid to back-to-back District 9 finals, beating Brookville in 2010 to win its most recent district title.
“We had a good group of athletes coming up and we thought the best way to utlize them was to throw the ball around,” Varischetti said. “We went looking for the best source to find out how to do that. Things kind of just took off from there.”
With star QB Derek Buganza, the Rovers threw for more than 2,800 yards three seasons in a row. They were passing pioneers in the area, bringing Franklin, Leach and Mumme’s aerial flair to District 9.
“We were the only team doing that in the area; probably the only team that was taking every snap from the shotgun,” Varsichetti said. “We saw very vanilla defensive looks and were able to take advantage of it.”
To the North, Nate Zitnik and Jason Luther saw Varischetti’s success and thought a similar system might work with their promising group at Port Allegany.
They started with a DVD by Chris Hatcher — Leach and Mumme’s most successful quarterback from their legendary Division II years at Valdosta State. From there, Zitnik, Luther and head coach Mike Bodamer pieced together a spread-style scheme that fit their talented playmakers.
With Matt Bodamer at quarterback, the Gators captured District 9 championships in 2011 and 2012.
“We ran a lot of the drop back stuff — we didn’t run a lot of the quick game, we ran a lot of the screen game,” said Zitnik, who played for Bob Haskins at Port before joining the elder Bodamer’s coaching staff in the mid-2000s. “The rule of the Air Raid is that you throw the ball short to a guy who can score.”
Leach was never a fan of balance, at least by its oft-used definition. Instead of balancing run and pass, he preferred to balance the ball equally between his five skill positions.
“You take pride in that — are we spreading the ball around?” Zitnik said. “You have dudes at the high school level and you get those dudes the ball. Leach’s ideology was always, we script plays to get certain guys the ball and assess that as time goes on. Throwing the ball short to guys who can score, and when they take that away, you throw it deep.”
TEN YEARS ago, an Air Raid in District 9 would have been a rarity.
“Back then, when anyone was lined up in the shotgun and throwing the ball, it was because they weren’t very good,” Varischetti said. “Maybe they didn’t have the linemen or whatever. Today, you even see good teams lining up that way because it’s just a very effective way to move the football.”
Varischetti brought his brand of the Air Raid to stints at DuBois, St. Marys and Brookville before returning to Brockway as offensive coordinator in 2021. Zitnik spent time at Otto-Eldred after leaving Port, where he echoed the Air Raid in spread sets alongside Nick LaBella and Troy Cook.
Zitnik was hired as offensive coordinator at Bradford in 2020 and brought Leach’s offense with him. Since then, Zitnik has formed quite the network of Air Raid connections, working with passing gurus from various levels in different parts of the country. Each has their own spin on the offense, but stem back to a common source.
“The system is the system,” Zitnik said. “It’s about being simple and being efficient. It’s as minimalistic as you could imagine an SEC playbook being. It was all about the philosophy of the Air Raid and getting your quarterback to execute within the Air Raid, because there is a lot of freedom.
“That’s kind of the blessing and the curse of it. If you have a kid that knows it and understands it, it’s great, but it puts a lot of pressure on them, as well.”
Zitnik’s connections brought him to Mississippi State on two separate trips in spring of 2021. There, he observed Leach’s signature everyman demeanor, sharing dinners and staff meetings alike with the Bulldog boss.
“I felt like an idiot being around (Leach) but he never treated anyone like that,” Zitnik said. “He was always talking about this or that, taking pictures with everybody … not what you would ever imagine an SEC football coach to be like. It was one of the most memorable football experiences of my life.”
That was Leach’s appeal — instead of breaking down football, his attention would wander to his power rankings of SEC mascots. Upon learning none of his players had seen the classic 1984 film Red Dawn, Leach subjected the team to a viewing, providing commentary throughout and producing team-wide references to the movie afterward.
LEACH WAS careful not to take credit for “inventing” the Air Raid.
He and Mumme popularized their signature style, but credited Lavell Edwards’ Brigham Young University teams and Glenn “Tiger” Ellison for pioneering it.
Leach and Mumme first joined forces at Iowa Weslyan University in 1989 before transplanting to Valdosta State in 1992 and then to Kentucky in 1997. Leach was Bob Stoops’ offensive coordinator for one season at Oklahoma before Texas Tech supplied his first head coaching job in 2000.
After 10 years at Texas Tech, he spent eight at Washington State before Mississippi State hired him ahead of the 2020 season. Countless influences have morphed and tweaked the Air Raid, but its purists almost always trace their roots back to Leach.
“(Leach) has been probably the greatest influence on football from a throwing standpoint in the last 50 or 60 years,” Varischetti said. “His concepts are being run from youth football to the NFL and it’s a shame to see him go this early. Who knows what he would have come up with next.”
(Jeff Uveino, Bradford Publishing Company assistant group sports editor, can be reached at juveino@bradfordera.com)
